


Catalyst

by DoubleBit



Category: Black Circle Boys (1997)
Genre: Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of past drug use, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:35:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleBit/pseuds/DoubleBit
Summary: Kyle Sullivan is thirty years old the first time it occurs to him to visit Shane in prison.“Have to admit, I’ve always known you’d show up here, just… you know, you’re on the wrong side of the glass.”
Relationships: Kyle Sullivan/OC, Kyle Sullivan/Shane Carver
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> I was totally obsessed with this film in high school, and upon recent re-watch realized that this pairing is 100% canon, though (probably) not to this extent. Surprised to find not a single fic for it, so I wrote one. (As seems to happen, italics stop working part-way through the fic. Bummer.) If you stumble upon this trash, thanks for reading!

Kyle Sullivan is thirty years old the first time it occurs to him to visit Shane in prison.

He's thought about Shane countless times since what he calls That Last Year - first, looking over his shoulder whenever he turned a corner, waking bolt-upright every time his father shambled down the hall to take a piss in the middle of the night. When he left for college, Shane was every black-haired boy at every party, and Kyle always stayed clear of the bonfire because he couldn't stand the way the smell clung to his clothes. Now, since leaving Edmonds for good, he still wonders occasionally at Shane's total _singularity._ How could someone you knew for eight months cast a shadow thirteen years long?

He remembers how Shane looked during sentencing – handsome, despite the orange jumpsuit and the dark circles beneath his eyes – slumped back in his chair with that air of petulance, as though the whole proceeding was only a deeply unfunny joke and he had somewhere else to be. He'd kept his head high as he was escorted from the courtroom by a cadre of four deputies, ever self-possessed, even in shackles. It was only as he passed by Kyle that his blue eyes narrowed and slid venomously sideways, and for a brief, selfish instant, Kyle hoped that Shane would manage to hang himself in his holding cell. Shane was many things, but never suicidal, and he entered the general population of the Washington State Penitentiary in September of 1998.

Kyle's driven past it a couple of times, traveling to Portland or Boise - turned his head just in time to see its brick watchtower and odd, quaint entrance gate in his rearview mirror. But he's never thought about stopping.

The need to see Shane - and it is a _need,_ itchy and persistent and vital - hits him abruptly one evening as he's gathering up his nephew's toys from the backyard before a summer storm. His bare foot comes down on something painful - a half-ruined cabin made of Lincoln-logs - and suddenly he's back at the old holding pond, clambering up the skeleton arm of the crane in his swim-trunks while Shane waits below with one hand on his hip. It's a pose struck to look unimpressed, but as Kyle descends he can see that Shane is smiling.

"Very nice," he deadpans, offering Kyle a drag. "I can see why Chloe lets you fuck her."

"Dude, fuck _off,_ " Kyle says, but he's laughing. His face feels warm - from the booze or the climb, or something else, he's not sure. Shane is looking at him like he's searching for something, and Kyle wonders what he ever did to end up in Shane's good graces, such as they are. Then, like now, the earth smells like rain, and a low thunderclap roils the air.

Shane tosses Kyle his clothes, says, "Come on - let's get the fuck out of here before that storm hits," and then slips one arm across Kyle's bare shoulders.

He makes an excuse to be gone overnight - a daylong seminar in Spokane, that's what he tells Danny. He feels guilty about lying, but it's only one more thread in a much larger deception; he's never lied to Danny about Shane before... not _exactly._ Danny knows that one of Kyle's classmates went downstate for murdering two boys, and he _also_ knows that Kyle had a friend in high school named Shane, who was kind of a bad person.

"Why did you go along with it?" Danny asked when Kyle told him about how they'd burglarized just about every vacation home in Edmonds.

"I dunno." Kyle shrugged. "Puppy love?"

 _"Gay,"_ Danny said, and made a retching noise. It was the kind of thing Shane would do.

They were alike, on the surface. Kyle met Danny during his sophomore year at SU, just before Danny dropped out to produce videos for a local longboarding team. Danny had black hair and a foul mouth, and that same kind of charisma that made anything he suggested seem like a great idea at the time. But Danny was talented and good-hearted, and didn't push when Kyle asked him to maybe just take things slow? With the paycheck from his first big job, he'd flown Kyle down to meet his parents in Veracruz. _Mi novio perdido,_ Danny had called him affectionately.

Ten years later, Kyle waits until Danny falls asleep to pad quietly back into the living room and fill out the online visitor application for the Washington State Pen.

_What is your relationship to the incarcerated individual?_

Kyle types in _accomplice, victim_ and _friend_ before deleting them each quickly in turn.

_He loved me._

He stares at the screen for several minutes, tapping lightly on the backspace key, and flinches when he hears Danny's sleep-muddied voice call out, "Stop watching porn and come back to bed, you asshole."

By the time he's finished the application, he's consoled himself with the fact that it's highly unlikely he'll be approved for a visit. Hell, he's not even sure if Shane is still at Walla Walla, or if he's allowed visitors, or if he's still _alive._ He looks forward to receiving a denial letter. But then, his relationship with Shane has never been that predictable.

It's a gray afternoon some months later when Kyle passes through security and into the visitation room for the penitentiary's Intensive Management Unit. He's chosen his clothes carefully - a charcoal button-up and a pair of jeans that give away nothing about where he lives, what he does, or how much money he makes. He slips his silver wedding band into a pocket before taking a seat at one of the empty windows.

The room smells both stale and clean, and Kyle's Chucks squeak cartoonishly against the linoleum. Beyond the window, he sees a wall of white-painted cinderblock, and a voice reminds him that there is still time to stand up, walk out and drive back to his husband and his dog and their house in Cherry Hill. Dimly, he registers the sound of a buzzer and then, muted but still audible through the glass:

"Kyle fucking _Sullivan._ "

A familiar shiver plays down Kyle's spine, and his breath catches in his throat as Shane takes his seat. A corrections officer stations himself against the wall behind Shane and offers a bored reprimand: "Language, Carver."

Shane rolls his eyes and gestures to the phone beside the window. Kyle hesitates before bringing it to his ear.

And there's that _voice_ \- coy and soft - accompanied by a wisp of a grin: "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Kyle wonders if he hasn't. It's been seven years since he swam in competition, and while he's still in shape, Kyle can't deny the small swell of a beer-belly that Danny likes to tease him about, or the fact that his hairline's receded a couple inches. He hasn't shaved his beard off since his wedding day. He's not sure what he expected, exactly, but Shane's incisive stare has lost none of its edge. His greasy, black hair is cut shorter now, and a tangle of predictable tattoos has begun to creep its way above the neckline of his khaki scrubs, but beyond that, the man sitting on the other side of the glass is the facsimile of the boy from biology class who had sized Kyle up so quickly all those years ago. It's eerie, and Kyle reminds himself yet again that Shane is flesh and blood and nothing more.

"Shane," he said.

"Look at _you._ " Kyle hears the affection masked beneath Shane's derisive tone. "I didn't believe it when they told me you'd requested visitation. Figured you'd puss out, like you always do." He twines his slender fingers through the coils of the telephone cord and sucks his teeth before adding, "Have to admit, I've always known you'd show up here, just... you know, you're on the wrong side of the glass."

"I know," says Kyle. He's thought the same thing many times.

"So, what brings you down to the Walls, after all these years?"

Kyle realizes that he's probably the first and only visitor that Shane has had in the past decade. "I came to see you," he mumbles, looking away.

"No _shit._ " Shane leans forward on his stool. _"Why?"_

"I don't _know,_ " Kyle admits. "I guess I just... felt like it, all of a sudden."

An unmistakable glint of triumph flashes across Shane's face. "Am I still giving you nightmares, Kyle?"

Kyle smiles in spite of himself - he'd forgotten how unconscionably _good_ it felt, once, to live at the center of Shane's universe, to be Shane's sole object of attention while everything else fell into dust around them. He remembers a night that spring that he'd borrowed the car and picked Shane up at his father's house - a gentle rain had turned to a downpour, and Shane had been waiting for him, soaking wet beside the freeway and holding a cigarette in his trembling fingers, blowing smoke straight in Kyle's face, asking, "What _took_ you so goddamn long?" as he turned up the heating on the dash.

"I don't really _have_ nightmares," Kyle tells him.

"Somebody's _medicated, _" Shane observes with a smirk. "You always _were_ better when you were on drugs."__

__Kyle ignores him. "How's prison treating you?"_ _

__Shane scoffs at him and crosses his arms over his chest. "Uh, it _sucks?_ What do you want me to _say?_ You want to know if I get _raped_ in here?" he guesses, not entirely incorrectly. "Not successfully - thanks for asking."_ _

__A hot blush floods Kyle's cheeks. "That's not what I _meant,_ " he murmurs into the receiver._ _

__"Chloe really got her hooks in deep, huh?" Shane asks abruptly, eyes flitting to Kyle's left hand, where a nearly imperceptible tan-line has given away the wedding ring._ _

__"What?" Kyle blinks at him, then shakes his head. "Chloe moved to Portland after graduation. I haven't seen her in years."_ _

__"Hmm." A thin smile tugs at the corner of Shane's lips. "Then who's the lucky lady? I assume my invitation was lost in the mail."_ _

__Kyle wills his face into the most neutral expression he can manage. "Just someone I met in college," he says, with a finality that brooks no further questions._ _

__"Well, she sounds _dreamy,_ " says Shane. "Kids?"_ _

__"Nah."_ _

__"Not exactly father material, are we?" It sounds mocking, but isn't._ _

__"No," Kyle concedes with a faint smile. "Not sure what a good father even looks like."_ _

__Shane's voice drops so low that Kyle strains to hear it. "I don't... don't suppose you know if my dad is dead, or..."_ _

__"Nah, man - I haven't been back to Edmonds since my parents got divorced."_ _

__"Good," says Shane definitively. "I'd rather rot in here than set food in that _shit-hole_ ever again."_ _

___As though you have a choice,_ Kyle thinks, but he holds his tongue. Instead, he asks, "Were you hoping I'd say he was dead?"_ _

__Shane shrugs and draws a fingernail along the edge of the table on his side of the partition. "I don't know. I'd probably sleep a little better if I just _knew,_ you know, one way or the other."_ _

__"What does it matter? You know you're like, never getting out of here, right?"_ _

__Kyle braces for something - Shane's fist against the glass, a snarling threat through the line - but Shane just laughs that peculiar, high laugh of his. "Oh _Kyle,_ " he says with a theatrical sort of condescension, "You don't really _believe_ that, do you?" And then Shane switches into a quiet seriousness that chills Kyle's blood. "You still think about me, don't you? When you're lying in bed, next to your whore wife - trying so _hard_ not to. You've never really told her the truth about me - about _us._ She has no _idea_ what you're capable of. What would she _think_ if she knew you like I do?"_ _

__Kyle wants to turn away, to leave - but he can't. He feels paralyzed and helpless as he did then, and this has always been Shane's appeal: _Hold still. Do what I say. Let me take care of you._ Kyle feels sick, like he's free-falling back into a chasm that he's fought so hard to climb his way out of. He reminds himself to think of Danny, but he can hardly recall his husband's face - muted and indistinct, like a photo faded by the sun._ _

__"Shane..."_ _

__" _Kyle,_ " Shane returns with a measure of tenderness. His fingertips press against the bottom edge of the window in a jarringly innocent gesture of longing. Even through twelve inches of glass and concrete, Kyle can feel the ache that radiates off Shane in waves, and wishes against reason that he could breathe it in the way he did in the woods and the backroads and all the other in-between places that he and Shane had claimed as theirs._ _

__"You jealous?"_ _

__"Why would I be _jealous?_ " Shane snipes. "Just because you get to walk out of here - drive back to your boring house and fuck your boring wife? No thanks, dude - I'm good."_ _

__"But like... don't you regret it?" The real question, hidden: _Why wasn't I enough?__ _

__To Kyle's surprise, Shane pauses thoughtfully before answering. "Parts of it," he says softly. "I should have known you weren't ready. Just a little too much in the light, still." He smiles and shakes his head. "I knew you'd make everything harder than it needed to be. But I _wanted_ you there - like, I _needed_ you to be there. It was selfish."_ _

__Kyle stares at him. It's as close as Shane will ever get to an apology, but Kyle's not even sure what it was he'd wanted to hear. Had he hoped that Shane would show some true contrition, or had he been counting on something so callously unrepentant that he could walk out and never wonder about Shane Carver again?_ _

__"It was," Kyle says. "I mean, you _are._ Selfish. But so was I. I knew- Well, I didn't know what was going to _happen,_ but I knew you were going to do something fucking awful to Rory. I just didn't think it would be... you know, I mean, you treated him like shit _all the time,_ and I just let it go, because I liked hanging out with you, for some fucking reason. Because when I was with you, I didn't have to think about any of that other shit."_ _

__Shane smiles at him with a trace of pity. "It was never _about_ Fairy," he says. "Rory didn't _matter._ He was just a... what's the right word? Like a thing that makes other shit happen?"_ _

__"A... like a catalyst?"_ _

__Shane snaps his fingers. " _There's_ my college boy. Yeah - Rory was just a _catalyst._ Things couldn't have stayed the way they were - I needed to move them forward. You understand that, right? Like, I know you've created this story in your head about how I'm this like, _monster,_ and everything that happened in your life happened in _spite_ of me, but we both know that's not true. You _needed_ me, and there I was. You really think you'd be such a better person if you never met me?"_ _

__Kyle shrinks away from Shane's wide-eyed conviction. He had wondered if - perhaps, over the years - he and Shane had reached the same conclusion: that Shane had murdered Rory because Rory represented the thing that Shane desperately wanted excised from _himself,_ that thing that his father was determined to beat out of him - an excitable, fey boy, hungry for attention and belonging._ _

__Kyle can barely raise his voice above a whisper when he replies, "You know, _I_ could've been your catalyst, if you weren't such a crazy _fuck._ "_ _

__Shane looks like he's been slapped in the face by this near-acknowledgment of affection, but he quickly recovers his cynicism. "And like we'd what - live some kind of happy-faggot fairy-tale life? You could go to college and then get a job doing... whatever faggot job you do, and I could sell coke to high school kids? Grow up, dude."_ _

__"You're right," Kyle capitulates with a sigh. "We definitely could never have just like, got the fuck out of Edmonds and figured things out from there. Nope. This is just how things had to be, I guess."_ _

__He's not sure why he says this - for the first time he can remember, Shane appears to be at a loss for words. He looks away from the window and swallows hard, and Kyle notes the slightest tremor of the phone in his hand. "Fuck _you._ " Shane's whisper crackles through the receiver. "You don't just _say_ shit like that when it's too late to matter."_ _

__"One minute," announces the guard by the wall, as though speaking to no one in particular._ _

__Shane turns back to the glass, trying to mask the tears welling in his eyes with a set jaw and a scowl. "Promise you'll come see me again," he demands._ _

___No,_ Kyle thinks, even as he dimly hears himself say, "Maybe... I don't know..."_ _

__" _Kyle._ "_ _

__He tries - and fails - to avoid the pull of Shane's gaze, wounded and insatiable. He has never known anyone else whose weakness held such power over him. _This_ is the thing he can never explain to Danny - that it's not _Shane_ that frightens him, but the way Shane makes him _feel._ Shane's fingers are once again tangled in the telephone cord, and Kyle knows that if not for the wall between them, Shane's hands would be on him now._ _

__"Maybe," he repeats faintly, and then corrections officer is telling Shane to hang up the phone, bringing Shane to his feet and cinching a pair of silver cuffs over Shane's wrists as Shane cranes his neck for one last look at Kyle. It's not until he hears the doors slam and lock behind them that Kyle realizes he's still got the receiver pressed against his ear._ _

__

__On his way to the motel, Kyle calls Chloe. They haven't spoken in over a year, and a part of him hopes that she won't pick up, but he feels an overpowering need to _confess,_ to hear her low, melancholy voice saying, "Oh Kyle - don't be fucking _stupid._ "_ _

__But she picks up with an excited, " _Kyle!_ Oh my God, I was just thinking about _calling_ you!"_ _

__Shane is the reason that Kyle can still call Chloe in the dead of night and she will always answer, but they almost never discuss him. Before he can muster the courage to tell her what he's done, she's telling him about a fiber-arts festival that she's organizing, and that she's moved in with Peter, the only one of her boyfriends that hasn't (in Kyle's opinion) been a totally worthless parasite, and she's so uncharacteristically upbeat that he just can't bear to ruin it. He listens to her talk about an installation she's working on with her knitting collective, phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he wheels his small suitcase into his room. He puts her on speaker to change into a t-shirt while she tells him that she's going to a Deftones show - "See, I'm not a _total_ hippie!" - and then grumbles in envy when she describes the new ramen restaurant that's opened a block from Peter's apartment._ _

__"You'll just have to come visit," she prods him, like she always does._ _

__By the time they hang up, it's dark out, and Kyle immediately orders a pizza from the place across the street. He eats it on the bed, propped up on a pillow while he switches aimlessly between TV channels and tries to think of something besides Shane. His phone buzzes with a text from Danny - "How's the conference going?" - to which he can barely stomach responding. He falls asleep late to the hum of traffic on the freeway._ _

__

__Kyle wakes with a jolt to the sensation of a body on top of him and a hand over his mouth. Instinctively, he thrashes against the mattress, trying to buck the intruder off, but the weight is too much and too perfectly placed._ _

__"Ssh, Kyle-" The room is pitch black, but there is no mistaking the sly grin couched in that whisper. "Don't piss your pants - it's only me." Kyle feels the pillow sag as Shane leans over him, and something cold - a necklace with a pendant - drops lightly onto his chest. Long fingers rake through Kyle's hair, and Shane inhales deeply. "Different shampoo," he observes. "I'm going to move my hand now - think you can swallow that scream?"_ _

__Kyle nods, and the hand slides down around his throat._ _

__"Tell me why you came to see me today."_ _

__"I _told_ you - I don't _know._ "_ _

__"You've always been such a shitty liar," Shane says, warm breath ghosting over Kyle's cheek. Kyle tries to turn away, but the grip on his windpipe tightens and holds him in place. His heart is hammering so hard that he's afraid it might stop, and he thinks fleetingly about how Danny will feel when the cops tell him that they've found Kyle's body in a motel room a hundred and fifty miles from where he'd said he'd be, but all that evaporates when Shane bites down on the rim of Kyle's ear._ _

__"Jesus _Christ_ \- Shane-"_ _

__Kyle's hands come up to push Shane away, but somehow end up knotted in the fabric of his shirt. This time, he can _feel_ Shane's smile - a wicked curve against his skin. "You said that the first time we did this. Come on, man - stop being such a fucking pussy. Just admit that you missed me."_ _

__Kyle remembers that night that Shane crawled through his kitchen window. He remembers the taste of Shane's split lip and the heady fear he'd felt when Shane stopped kissing him just long enough to growl, _If you ever tell **anyone** about this, I'll fucking **kill** you.__ _

__"I don't think about you," Kyle says, "sometimes for months at a time. Wake up, go to work - just like a regular, happy asshole."_ _

__"Yeah? And then what?"_ _

__"And then sometimes you're just... _there._ Like you never went away."_ _

__"I fucking _knew_ it," says Shane, and then his mouth is on Kyle's, ravenous at first before softening into something almost sweet. The hand on Kyle's throat vanishes, then re-materializes on his hip, slipping towards the elastic of his boxer-briefs. Shane always did manage to go from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds, but it's a disarmingly tentative touch, and Kyle's breath hitches even as he intercepts Shane's fingers._ _

__"Dude - _stop._ "_ _

__Shane curses as he twists out of Kyle's grasp and grabs a fistful of Kyle's hair. "No, _you_ stop," he says, not harshly. "Stop trying to take responsibility for things that are out of your control. If this is real, you're not strong enough to stop me. If it's a dream, you don't need to." He yanks Kyle's head back and sucks a wet kiss just beneath Kyle's jaw, huffing out a laugh at the way Kyle's body arches up in response. "Thirteen years, and you're _still_ fucking terrified of what happens if you just. let. _go._ "_ _

__And Kyle absolutely _hates_ the needy little gasp that escapes him as Shane's hand resumes its course, fingernails leaving a wake of goosebumps along Kyle's ribs and the swell of his stomach, pulling Kyle's half-hard prick free from his shorts. He's on the cusp of saying _no_ again when he feels Shane's tongue tracing downward over the arc of his hip, and suddenly he can't recall why he'd ever wanted to say it._ _

__Despite Shane's conflicted sexuality, his enthusiasm for sucking dick - or at least, sucking _Kyle's_ dick - remains unparalleled by any of Kyle's subsequent partners. It's something that Kyle avoids thinking about generally, except for when he can't, and the afterwards he wonders if there's something deeply and organically _wrong_ with him, on a cellular level._ _

__"You ever done this before?" Kyle had asked the first time, to which Shane had rolled his eyes and said, "Don't worry, dude - I promise not to bite it off."_ _

__Kyle tried not to dwell on the question of _where_ Shane had learned how to give head like he actually _enjoyed_ it, though he was sure he knew the answer. "I can't believe you fucking... _swallowed,_ " he'd marveled afterward, reaching for the fly of Shane's jeans, determined to reciprocate. But Shane had swatted his hands away, kissed him on the lips and told him, "Not tonight. Go to sleep, faggot," which Kyle promptly did._ _

__As with everything, this was about power for Shane - namely, his ability to reduce Kyle to a swearing, begging mess, and if part of the game was to force Kyle to choke down the sounds of his own pleasure or risk being discovered in such a state by his parents, then so much the better. It wasn't until the fourth time that Shane let Kyle return the favor, fingers wound through Kyle's hair in the cramped back seat of his mom's Corolla. Kyle had fully intended to impress Shane by downing it like a good fucking soldier, but at the last second narrowly avoided gagging and found himself frozen, grimacing around a mouthful of jizz that he could not bring himself to swallow. Shane had laughed and called him a pussy, then pulled Kyle into a kiss so sloppy and disgusting that Kyle _still_ gets hard just thinking about it._ _

__Now, in the dark of the motel room, the wet heat of Shane's mouth threatens to obliterate the intervening years, as though this is all Kyle has ever been. He feels himself being swept away as if by a strong current, scrabbling for a hold on something - some concrete detail that might grant him enough purchase to pull himself out of this rush - but finds nothing tenable. Instead, he bites his bottom lip to stifle a moan._ _

__Kyle is mortified to feel his climax already beginning to well up, his breath growing short and ragged as the tension mounts between his thighs. He's managed to keep his hands clenched in the sheets, but now allows himself a loose grip on the back of Shane's neck, a touch that has always served as a courtesy warning._ _

__"Already?" Shane teases. "Fucking pathetic."_ _

__"Fuck _you._ " Kyle's voice cracks a tugs sharply on Shane's hair. "Just fucking - _please_ just get it over with."_ _

__"Such a fucking romantic. That how you talk to your _wife?_ Maybe _that's_ why she only fucks you like, once a month, judging by your sprint to the finish-line here. Unless I just really am that _good._ "_ _

__"Goddamnit, Shane - if you-"_ _

__The sensation of Shane's lips just brushing the tip of his cock is enough to trip the circuit between Kyle's mouth and his brain, and the rest of the disintegrates into a strangled whine._ _

__"Sorry, didn't catch that - what is it you want, exactly?"_ _

__And this is part of a script, a cue that Kyle knows by heart. "Just let me _come,_ you asshole."_ _

__Shane gives Kyle's prick a half-hearted stroke. "Ask me nicely, you fucking fairy."_ _

__"I want to come for you," Kyle says, and he burns with shame at the truth of it._ _

__"There," says Shane, "was that so fucking hard?" and before Kyle can think, Shane's mouth is on him again, sucking him over the edge._ _

__He wishes he could see Shane's face, though he can imagine it well enough - Shane's blue eyes watering but unflinching as Kyle spills down his throat, drinking in the sight of Kyle's complete ruination. Shakily, Kyle props himself up against the headboard and reaches into the darkness until his fingers close around the pentagram that hangs from Shane's neck, and hauls Shane up into a vicious kiss. He can taste himself on Shane's tongue, and doesn't bother trying to suppress the disappointed sigh that escapes him when Shane pulls away. His mind's eye supplies a memory of Shane sitting back onto his heels and wiping at the corner of his mouth in one of those prim gestures that suits him better than he knows._ _

__Kyle's hands search for Shane's belt buckle, and Shane inhales roughly when Kyle's knuckles brush over the hardness in his jeans. "Kyle-"_ _

__"Are you seriously about to tell me to stop?" Kyle grinds the heel of his palm against Shane's erection. "Fucking pussy."_ _

__Shane slaps him across the cheek, just hard enough to sting. "You think I don't want it? _Fuck,_ dude - if I had my way, I'd fuck you until they found us both dead with me inside you. But it took everything I had just to _get_ here, and I can't stay any longer."_ _

__Kyle opens his mouth to object - _How is this the **only** time you have a fucking **ounce** of self-restraint?_ he wants to ask - but Shane preemptively pins him to the mattress and bites down on Kyle's bottom lip. Kyle can feel Shane's arousal pressed against him, and Shane's breath catches with the friction of it._ _

__" _Fuck_ \- I love you."_ _

__It's not the first time Shane's said it - Kyle remembers how Shane had whispered those words to him one night beside the dying embers of the fire, long after Rory had gone home, and Munn had fallen asleep face-down in a pile of leaves._ _

__"You took too much mesc," Kyle said, lifting the collar of his shirt over his face to cover his blushing._ _

__"No, I took the absolute perfect amount." Shane flopped back onto the forest floor, with his arms outstretched and an awestruck smile. "Drugs don't change the fact that I love you."_ _

__Even now, though, it shocks him like it did that night - that someone so hateful of his own weakness could say those words without flinching. As though it was irrefutable. As though it was in Shane's undeniable animal nature to love Kyle, and in Kyle's nature - despite his countless flaws - to be loved by Shane._ _

__"I have to go," Shane reminds himself again. He kisses Kyle one last time, with uncharacteristic tenderness. "Come and see me again, or I swear to God I will haunt you until it's time for you to join me in hell."_ _

__

__Kyle sleeps through his alarm, and wakes to the sound of the maid knocking on the door. As he hurries to shove his things into his suitcase, he catches his reflection in the mirror above the dresser, and for a split second sees there a younger version of himself, bleary-eyed and wan, bearing a dark love-bite just above his collar. He brings his fingers up to touch the mark, but when he looks again, there's nothing there, and the boy in the mirror is gone._ _

__* * *_ _

__In the week following his visit, Kyle googles “escape Washington State Penitentiary 2011 Shane Carver” forty-four times. A couple months later, he’s managed to accept that what he experienced in that motel room was only an especially vivid dream, and he’s chosen not to examine its underlying implications._ _

__It’s just before dinner one evening in December when Danny sneaks up behind Kyle as he’s sorting through the mail, wraps his arms around Kyle’s waist and plants a kiss on his cheek. Resting his chin on Kyle’s shoulder, Danny’s dark eyes land on the envelope in Kyle’s shaking hands._ _

__“Who’s writing you from the state penitentiary, babe?”_ _


End file.
